ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, today announced the availability of a new highly automated solution for businesses needing to manage user access to IT systems and information.

Australian businesses and government agencies rely on technologies such as Microsoft Active Directory to determine which users and devices have permission to access IT systems and particular pieces of information.

ManageEngine has now released ADManager Plus 6, which allows any organisation to greatly improve their management of Active Directory permissions. Identity and Access Management (IAM) tools such as ADManager Plus also provide crucial reporting of user access information needed to meet recently introduced auditing standards such as SSAE16.

Alex D Paul, Director - ITSM Products at ManageEngine commented, “Keeping track of employee access to systems and data can be a very time consuming task using the standard Microsoft Windows tools. ADManager Plus lets businesses design templates to automatically provision the appropriate access to systems based on a person’s job role.”

“ADManager Plus can save an organisation an enormous amount of manual administration effort, while ensuring everyone has appropriate access. This is especially important now that so many job roles involve staff moving between offices, and using their own personal iPads and tablets to access corporate data.”

ADManager Plus is a simple, easy-to-use Windows Active Directory management and reporting solution that helps AD administrators and help desk technicians with their day-to-day activities. With a centralised and intuitive web-based UI, the software handles a variety of routine yet complex tasks.

Smart devices that let users access data anytime, from anywhere also pose several threats to data security. Mistakes in access provision can expose crucial information to the wrong users, jeopardising data security. Moreover, businesses must comply with regulatory regimes such as HIPAA, SOX and other IT regulations that mandate accountability in data access and management.
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I've been using ADManager Plus for more than five years, managing Active Directory users and permissions," said Margaret Sandler, IT security specialist at CareTech Solutions. "I am conducting weekly as well as quarterly Active Directory audits for SSAE16, and the new automation addition to this product will be a great help in managing the users’ accounts. It will eliminate some of the tasks that I perform manually and will automatically modify, move and alert when accounts are expired or need to be moved to different OUs. It will help me stay in control."

ADManager Plus 6 Highlights:

ADManager Plus streamlines IAM in Active Directory, offering IT administrators “user management templates” that can be used to create a library of preconfigured access controls. Those access controls can be assigned to users as their job position warrants, reducing the possibility of errors in access management.

While this standardises access management procedures, ADManager Plus 6 also automates crucial Active Directory operations with new features, such as:
• Enhanced workflow engine: ADManager Plus now includes an enhanced workflow engine that allows organisations to define or implement their review-approve policies for all IAM operations in Active Directory. This allows organisations to route IAM requests to specific managers for approval. The engine also allows a multiple-level approval process.

• Automatic task assigner: The ADManager Plus workflow engine can automatically assign a task to a specific employee, ensuring mission-critical tasks are carried out only by qualified technicians.

• IAM ticket repository: All the IAM requests generated in ADManager Plus and their outcomes can be documented. This provides a full audit trail for all changes to system access.

• IAM automation in Active Directory: User provisioning, de-provisioning and other crucial tasks can now be automated in ADManager Plus. Workflows can be implemented for those automated processes. Provisioning templates let IT delegate IAM processes to non-technical personnel while maintaining the accountability needed for compliance.

• Automation rules and policies: Administrators can determine how an automated process should execute and trigger a cascade of processes automatically. For instance, businesses that hire contractors can automatically create user accounts when contracts begin, disable them when contracts terminate, and de-commission them after their retention period.

ADManager Plus also offers a set of prepackaged reports, including compliance-specific reports.

Pricing and Availability:

ADManager Plus 6 starts at USD $495 and is available for download at http://www.manageengine.com/products/ad-manager/download.html. A fully functional, 30-day trial version is also available for download.
For more information on ADManager Plus visit www.manageengine.com/products/ad-manager/.

About ManageEngine:

ManageEngine delivers the real-time IT management tools that empower an IT team to meet an organization’s need for real-time services and support. Worldwide, more than 65,000 established and emerging enterprises - including more than 60 percent of the Fortune 500 — rely on ManageEngine products to ensure the optimal performance of their critical IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, desktops and more. ManageEngine is a division of Zoho Corp. with offices worldwide, including the United States, United Kingdom, India, Japan and China. For more information, please visit http://www.manageengine.com/; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com/, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter at @ManageEngine.

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